AdHoc Studio’s co-directors Dennis Lenart and Chris Rebbert reflect on the success of Dispatch, sharing insights into the game’s development while also hoping the industry doesn’t take the wrong lessons from it. After its reveal less than a year ago at the 2024 Game Awards, Dispatch launched to huge success for Adhoc Studio, leaving fans hungry for more.
With a star-studded cast of actors like Aaron Paul and Laura Bailey, Dispatch is an episodic narrative adventure game that harkens back to what players would have seen in the past from studios like Telltale Games. The connection makes sense considering Adhoc Studio is made up of former Telltale developers and the popularity of the studio’s first game has led to fans calling for a second season of Dispatch. While nothing is confirmed yet, the studio’s co-directors reflected on the experience and provided a bit of insight into what lessons they hope the industry learns from this.
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The Success of Dispatch Credited to Two Main Features
In a recent interview, co-directors Dennis Lenart and Chris Rebbert were quick to credit two things that contributed to Dispatch‘s overall success. For Lenart, it simply came down to the fact that players still enjoy well-made narrative games. Specifically, Lenart felt that many games have become overly complicated, stating that, “I feel like I get on so many games now, and it’s like I have to download an update every time I get on, and I have to pay for any extra thing.” He continues that, like many, he craves a linear experience that can just be jumped into and enjoy “that is uninhibited by microtransactions and stuff like that.”
On a similar note, Chris Rebbert highlighted the episodic release schedule for Dispatch, noting that each release helped turn the game into a weekly event for players. Other episodic games typically had a more chaotic release schedule, launching new episodes a month or more apart, making it more difficult for fans to know when new content would arrive. In fact, the weekly release cadence was so popular with players that Dispatch actually issued a message to fans after the first week without new content to play arrived.
And not to say those experiences shouldn’t be available for those who enjoy them, but I feel like a lot of people would like to have experiences like this, where they can just jump in and have a personal singular or linear playthrough or whatever it might be that is uninhibited by microtransactions and stuff like that, you know.
Despite the belief by many that “narrative, single-player games” were a dying genre, the studio stayed the course, believing in what they had. In terms of the industry as a whole, both Lenart and Rebbert hope that the big takeaway from Dispatch‘s success isn’t the fact that it has moments of adult humor and situations. Instead of focusing on the shock value, it should be more of just a part of the overall story to help get players invested in the characters or the story. As Lenart put it, “all of that is sort of flavoring that gets peppered in the story and the characters where they’re at in the moment. It’s not the thing we start with.”
Whatever the case may be, there’s no denying that Dispatch has left a strong mark on the industry as a whole, proving that this genre isn’t a dying breed as many originally thought. Outside the fans, even the actors are hoping for more seasons of Dispatch. Aaron Paul, who plays protagonist Robert Robertson, expressed his hope that he gets to help make more content, possibly multiple seasons of Dispatch. For now, fans will need to continue waiting until a potential announcement from AdHoc is made.
- Released
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October 22, 2025
- ESRB
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Mature 17+ / Blood, Crude Humor, Intense Violence, Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs and Alcohol
- Developer(s)
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AdHoc Studio
- Publisher(s)
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AdHoc Studio
Source: Kotaku
